SAP Screen Personas HTML update
August 13, 2014 update
SAP Screen Personas 3.0 is now in ramp-up.
Original post
I frequently receive questions about “Personas HTML,” especially now that SAP Screen Personas is available to all SAP ERP customers as part of their underlying license. This is very interesting, as there is no SAP product called SAP Screen Personas HTML. There is an HTML component of Personas 2.0, which we introduced when we released SAP Screen Personas 2.0. I will use this blog to address the questions about this component and how it relates to the planned Personas 3.0.
Before going into the technical details, let me say that discussing the underlying technology (Silverlight vs. HTML) behind SAP Screen Personas is a distraction from its core business value. SAP Screen Personas drives employee productivity through personalization. It allows companies to simplify SAP ERP screens to improve usability, making people more effective and efficient in their jobs. By making screens more intuitive, organizations can reduce training costs significantly.
Here is a table with a summary of the capabilities (or planned capabilities) of the different SAP Screen Personas versions or components.
|
|
SAP Screen Personas 2.0 (Silverlight component) |
SAP Screen Personas 2.0 (HTML component) |
SAP Screen Personas 3.0 (planned – not a commitment of future functionality) |
|
Release date |
July 2013 |
July 2013 |
Planned for 2014 |
|
Last update |
May 2014 |
November 2013 |
Not applicable |
|
Live customers |
Yes |
No |
Not applicable |
|
Customer references available |
Yes |
No |
Not applicable |
|
Ability to simplify SAP ERP screens |
Yes |
Limited |
Planned |
|
Ability to combine information from multiple tabs |
Yes |
No |
Planned |
|
Scripting engine |
Yes |
No |
Planned |
|
Migration of flavors to Personas 3.0 |
Planned to be mostly automatic |
Manual |
Not applicable |
And the answers to some questions I have recently received on this topic.
What features are in the SAP Screen Personas 2.0 SP2 Silverlight component but missing in SAP Screen Personas 2.0 SP2 HTML component?
SAP Screen Personas 2.0 HTML component lacks scripting and tab merging, so it lacks the core functionality a customer needs to go live. If you want HTML functionality, please wait for SAP Screen Personas 3.0.
What are the features implemented in SAP Screen Personas 3.0 which would make it different from SAP Screen Personas 2.0 SP02 HTML/Silverlight versions?
SAP Screen Personas 3.0 is planned to be similar in functionality with SAP Screen Personas 2.0 (Silverlight), but SAP Screen Personas 3.0 is now an extension of the SAP GUI for HTML (Web GUI), eliminating the Silverlight dependency.
What is the backward compatibility of SAP Screen Personas 3.0 with SAP Screen Personas 2.0 SP02 Silverlight version?
- Is it possible to migrate the development done from SAP Screen Personas 2.0 SP02 Silverlight version to SAP Screen Personas 3.0 version efficiently?
- What could be the level of effort?
We are already working on this migration path. Our plan is to make this very simple and mostly automated. Our testing of this functionality is going well and we demoed this at SAPPHIRE NOW using a lab preview of Personas 3.0.
What is the backward compatibility of SAP Screen Personas 3.0 with SAP Screen Personas 2.0 SP02 HTML version?
- Is it possible to migrate the development done from SAP Screen Personas 2.0 SP02 HTML version to SAP Screen Personas 3.0 HTML version efficiently?
- What could be the level of effort?
We are NOT focusing on this migration path. It will be manual (rebuild the screens).
What are the prominent features going to be included in SAP Screen Personas 3.0 which would differentiate it exceptionally from SAP Screen Personas 2.0 SP2 Silverlight / HTML version
These are the planned themes of the Personas 3.0 release:
- Improved performance
- Enhanced scripting – nested if statements & looping
- Make editing more user friendly and dynamic
- Remove Silverlight dependency without losing functionality
You can get a sense of what to expect based on the lab preview of SAP Screen Personas 3.0 we showed at SAPPHIRE NOW.
When we get closer to the ramp-up phase, we will open a call to ramp-up on SCN. This will be a nomination and selection process. We need to choose a specific set of technically advanced customers that meet certain industry / LOB / use case / language criteria. This will ensure that the ramp-up process thoroughly exercises the product and ensures that we can be very confident of its quality, performance and scalability when we make it generally available.
For the SAP Screen Personas product team, Peter Spielvogel.
HI Peter, This is a great update, thanks. I have one question.
"SAP Screen Personas 3.0 is now an extension of the SAP GUI for HTML (Web GUI)".
HOwever, there seems to be no mention of a SAP GUI for Windows Win GUI) version - is this also planned, and can you give any information on this?
THanks Julie.
Hi Julie,
We plan for the initial release of Personas 3.0 to run only in the Web GUI.
The planned architecture is such that it could support SAP GUI in the future. This is not part of the release criteria for Personas 3.0.
We do plan to make this capability available at some point. As you know, we cannot commit to future planned release dates.
Regards,
Peter
Could you please elaborate? It seems like SAP Personas HTML version is unusable, yet it is described in the master guide as something customers can use. Doesn't this lead to confusion in your customer base?
Hi Joao,
If your use case is simple and does not require any tab merging or scripting, you could use the Personas 2.0 HTML component. But, with hundreds of customers using the product, I have not seen anyone doing this; they all use the Silverlight component. The real power of driving productivity is through automation, which the HTML component lacks.
Hope this clarifies things.
Regards,
Peter
Hello Peter,
In the SAP Screen Personas configuration documentation it’s available for Silverlight version (Document Version: May 2014 or SAP Screen Personas Addendum), but not for HTML version. Also the two main posts in the SCN (Link1 ans Link2) are based on the Silverlight version, that today is richer (no doubt).
Is there a place where we can find specific steps for HTML version?
Thanks,
Andrei
Hi Andrei,
If you are interested in using SAP Screen Personas without a Silverlight dependency, I recommend you wait for SAP Screen Personas 3.0.
Regards,
Peter
Hi Peter,
Thanks for all of the valuable content you have been posting regarding Personas.
One question I have is where do we stand on being able to combine fields from multiple tabs in Personas 3.0? Either into one of the tabs, or into the main screen by getting rid of the tabstrip all together.
The reason I ask is that I've been having issues doing this to the point where the app consistently crashes. You mentioned above that this functionality was "planned" as of July 2014, so I was wondering if/when this would be available.
Merging tabs is a great way to simplify screens and reduce time spent in a transaction. Our users loved this feature in 2.0 and were very excited to see it in 3.0.
Regards,
Olavo
Hi Olavo,
Yes, tab merging is available in SAP Screen Personas 3.0 (currently in ramp-up).
You can combine items into one of the tabs or on the main screen.
The approach is different in that with the new version, you no longer cache the information. The system pulls only the screen elements it needs as it renders the screen.
Regards,
Peter
What is the software component required for SP HTML 3.0?
SAP Screen Personas is currently in ramp-up. We plan to release it as generally available at the end of June 2015. Details here.
http://scn.sap.com/community/gui/blog/2015/02/11/sap-screen-personas-2015-outlook-roadmap
Regards,
Peter
Just finished the openSAP course and I have to say it seems pretty awesome. Looking forward to GA.
edit: Great course by the way, highly recommended. Not too heavy, but with enough detail.